Great Jin

The Great Jin was a Jurchen dynasty which ruled northern China from 1115 to 1234. In 1115, the Jurchen chieftain Aguda overthrew the Khitan Great Liao dynasty and established the Jin dynasty, forcing the Khitans to establish the new state of Xi Xia in the west. The Jin then went to war with the Song dynasty to the south for over 100 years, besieging Kaifeng in 1127 and coming to rule over northern China. During the 1130s, a pro-Song insurgency in the north and a counteroffensive by the Song generals Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, and others prevented the Jin from invading the Song lands in the south. Meanwhile, the Jurchens quickly adopted Chinese culture, revived Confucianism, and helped to bolster the Great Wall defenses against the Mongols. In 1211, however, the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan invaded China, and Jin was conquered by Ogedei Khan in 1234.